


West Virginia

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2001-08-31
Updated: 2001-08-31
Packaged: 2018-11-20 18:57:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11341365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived atThe Basement, which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address onThe Basement's collection profile.





	West Virginia

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

 

West Virginia by Revenant

Title: 'West Virginia'(pt 1/2)   
Series: 'Perfection', chapter 1   
Author: Revenant  
Disclaimer: Still not mine, but I'm hoping to have Mulder when Fox has finished with him...   
Rating: eventually NC-17, just not *quite* yet.   
Archive: RatB, anyone else who wants it can have it, just let me know   
Warnings: er..nothing really. No spoilers, set after Alex appears and post-Sleepless.   
Feedback: Things I like include chocolate, whiskey, money and feedback. Send any of these my way and I'll be a happy bunny. Thoughts for the day; why does e-mail destroy all that careful formatting you do in word? I hate that. Thusly, ** indicates italics and shows tabs. Grrrrrr.  
Many, many thanks to Karen-Leigh for splendid beta-ing ;0)

* * *

West Virginia (Part 1 of 2)

Mulder sprawled on his motel bed with the utter bonelessness only the truly exhausted can achieve.His shirt sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, his top shirt button undone. Today's tie, which Alex personally considered one of his best, was loosely knotted around the collar. The tie was cobalt blue, and showed Homer Simpson being forcibly expelled from a neon-pink flying saucer by bug-eyed, borgia- green aliens. Several of Mulder's most successfully offensive items of neckwear featured the classic little green men motif; they appeared to be a necessary component for irredeemable hideousness. Alex idly wondered if Mulder wore the monstrosities for some twisted personal satisfaction, or if his colour blindness made him truly ignorant of their amazing awfulness. On second thoughts, even total blindness wouldn't be enough excuse for inflicting those sartorial nightmares on an unsuspecting and undeserving world.It had to be deliberate. The conclusion was redundant; he'd all ready discovered that Mulder took an unhealthy joy in indiscriminately annoying anyone within a 50-mile radius.

Alex sighed and stretched out lazily on his own supposedly queen sized bed. The space might have been easier to appreciate if the bed didn't sink so badly in the middle that moving to the edge required an effort similar to that of a wasp trying to escape flypaper.He bowed to the inevitable and settled face up, cradled gently in passive softness. His brain was quietly humming, fuelled with too much food, too much caffeine and way too much alcohol.He wondered if Mulder could hear it.He grinned. Mulder had been totally wired when they'd checked into the motel, cheerfully manic and devastatingly charming in equal turns. The pretty blonde receptionist had alternated between incipient Mulder-worship and hovering over the 911 speed-dial button, much to Alex's amusement. However, it seemed as soon as Mulder lay down his brain had eloped along with his skeletal structure, leaving his body to recover from the night's excesses without their interference.

"At least no-one died this time."

Alex jerked upright, nearly giving himself a terminal case of whiplash. "Jesus, Mulder! Give a guy some warning!"He re-settled himself on his side, facing Mulder, his head propped awkwardly on his right hand. Mulder hadn't shifted from his lazy sprawl, the pose flattening his stomach and highlighting those long, lean thighs... Alex quickly dropped his gaze before he could be caught staring, determinedly ignoring the tight heat that had suddenly ignited to curl restlessly in his belly. A distraction was needed, and if nothing else, `distracting' was part of Mulder's unique definition of a conversation. "If no-one died, it wasn't through lack of trying. I mean, a cult of chicken worshipping weirdoes `baptising' people in an old power plant? The fact that none of them expired has got to be proof their God exists. I can't think of any other reason they weren't all southern fried chicken by the time we got there."

"Hey! We are now living in the age of PC.Kindly remember that us weirdoes prefer the term `normally challenged'." Mulder admonished severely, completely ruining the effect with the makings of a truly evil grin. "When the Lord High Rooster thanked me on behalf of he- who-crows-with-the-dawn" He trailed off, laughter consigning the remainder of the sentence to the twilight realm of verbal might-have- beens.

"Challenged is right."Alex replied snidely. The memory made him smile though; Mulder had looked like he was on the verge of a coronary. The Lord High Rooster had apparently thought he was overwhelmed by the gravity of the situation, and had thankfully allowed Alex to escort him away, after expressing his sincerest apologies for overtaxing him. They'd only just made it out of the door before they both exploded into helpless laughter, restraint eroded away by several glasses of a suprisingly good local beer. He sighed. It had been that kind of case. Rumours of flashing lights at night at an old power station had sent Mulder haring off to West Virginia of all places, junior agent Krycek reluctantly in tow. The stress of playing the gormless Boy Wonder to Mulder's Batman was really beginning to get to him, not to mention the god-awful mess his hair and wardrobe were in. He would almost have *preferred* a Robin outfit, and privately suspected that the seemingly limitless quantity of hair gunk his employers supplied him with could be the explanation for a good few oil-tanker disappearances in Bermuda.

The alleged X-file was a total wash out from the paranormal perspective. A band of local yokels had commandeered the abandoned plant as a temple to their avian deity; the lights had been nothing more than their torches and the occasional arcing of broken cables. It was Mulder's behaviour that had been a revelation. Since Alex had been assigned to Mulder, his actions had only confirmed the profile his employers had given him; a driven man, on the edge of society and sanity. He'd built up a healthy respect for Mulder's intelligence; the amount of information the man could extract from the seemingly most inconsequential of details was truly impressive, and the wry humour that occasionally slipped out past the barricades appealed to his own twisted world-view, but he wasn't going to lose any sleep about giving him up to the Smoker. In and out, business as usual, right?

Wrong.As soon as it had become apparent that the case was a dud, Mulder's whole attitude had changed. Instead of the cursing and drive to get back to his Work (since it had reached the proportions of a holy quest, Alex felt it deserved the capitalisation) that Alex expected, Mulder had undergone a character transformation worthy of an X-file all on its own.It seemed Mulder had decided that this was as good an excuse as any for a long-overdue vacation, and they'd stayed for the entire two weeks they'd been allotted. The sardonic comments, instead of being directed at Alex, began to be aimed at others, brief sideways glances inviting him to share the joke. Alex found that Mulder's unique brand of humour was definitely easier to appreciate when it came at another's expense.

Lately, other aspects of Mulder than just his sense of humour had come to Alex's attention.Usually he would have acted on the attraction straight away. However, a total lack of information on where exactly Mulder's preferences lay, not to mention the necessity of keeping his cover as innocent young agent Krycek, meant he was getting to know someone that he wanted much better than he ever had before. In return, Mulder was seeing much more of the `real' Alex than anyone else had seen for a long time, even if he couldn't appreciate the fact. In the consortium, looking too clever made you dangerous, too dumb and you were relegated to grunt-work for the rest of your life.His cover as an agent let him use his native intelligence, and it felt so *incredibly* good, like finally stretching out and using the muscles of a broken arm when the cast came off. He was no longer sure if he was going to be able to stuff the genie back in the bottle once this assignment was over.

Sometimes, the situation amused him. Other times, when he lay alone in bed and his libido was reminding him that it hadn't vanished just because he was on a case, the dark fantasies whispering through his brain were anything but funny.

Mulder's drawl halted the introspective moment"The Native Americans believed that the eggs of the West Virginia River Chicken contained the power to communicate with the dead."

"Was that an episode of Jerry Springer that I missed?" Alex replied easily. "I can see it now; `river chickens, their eggs, and the cultures who love them'."

"I actually researched the case. Sometimes, it helps." There was a smile hovering in Mulder's voice. Alex wanted to defend himself, but since all his in-depth research had been on the subject of a certain Fox William Mulder, Esq., he conceded the point.

"Uh-huh, because that is such a necessary thing to know. Not only can you see the future in your breakfast tea leaves, but now you can commune with your dead relatives through the omelette."

There was a subtle pause before Mulder answered. "I guess that only works if you *know* they're dead." If he hadn't been trained to listen for such things, the bitterness in Mulder's voice would have gone unnoticed. What the..? Alex frantically wracked his brain.Oh shit. Samantha. Alex mentally kicked himself soundly in the rear. "Mulder, I'm sorry, I should have..." He sat up, swinging his legs off the side of the bed.

"Jesus, Alex, don't apologise." Mulder twisted upright until he was sitting on the edge of his matress, but his head dipped so he wasn't meeting Alex's gaze. He sighed and rubbed a hand through his hair in frustration. "Look, you didn't do anything wrong.I'm tired, I'm drunk..." he took a deep breath, released it, then looked up at Alex. "Basically, I'm being a jerk." His mouth twisted ruefully. "I don't know if you've noticed, but sometimes I have trouble remembering everything isn't about me.At least, that's what Scully tells me."

"Mulder..."

"Forget it."

The response only missed out on being a command by the smallest margin. Alex decided to heed the warning, and left it. Awkward silence filled the room like a creeping fog. Alex decided to break the quiet before it choked him. "Umm... I think I'm going to turn in. You want the bathroom first?"

"Go for it", Mulder said, lying back down on the faded pink bedcover. He was looking up at the ceiling, but Alex knew it wasn't the cracked plaster he was seeing.

When he re-emerged form the bathroom, Mulder was curled up foetally under the bedclothes, his back to the room. Alex got silently into bed, and turned out the light.

********

part two to follow when I convince Alex that sex really *is* more fun than shooting people.

  
Archived: August 30, 2001 


End file.
